Latham Elects Chairman, Managing Partner: Business of Law

By Elizabeth Amon -
Jul 16, 2014

London project development and
project financing lawyer Bill Voge has been elected Latham &
Watkins LLP’s new global chairman and managing partner,
succeeding Robert M. Dell, who is retiring after two decades as
head of the firm.

“He is clear-sighted and a consensus-builder who is highly
attuned to our unique culture, client service and the external
market forces driving change in the legal profession,” Dell
said of Voge in a statement.

Voge, who joined Latham in 1983 and was elected to the
partnership in 1991, will take over at the start of the year. He
spent eight years on the firm’s executive committee and has been
global chairman of the finance department and global co-chairman
of the project-finance practice. His work has included acting on
electricity and oil and gas projects in the U.S. and globally.

“I look forward to the opportunity to work with vice
chairs Dave Gordon and Ora Fisher and Chief Operating Officer
LeeAnn Black, all of whom have terrific judgment, drive and
leadership,” Voge said in a statement.

Deals

Jones Day Advises Reynolds on $25 Billion Lorillard Acquisition

Jones Day is advising Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), which agreed
to buy Lorillard Inc. for about $25 billion excluding debt, a
deal that would leave the 400-year-old U.S. tobacco industry
with two competitors controlling 90 percent of the market.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is advising Lorillard.

The Jones Day deal team is led by Randi Lesnick and Jere Thomson, mergers and acquisitions. Additional partners include
Craig Waldman and Joe Sims, antitrust; Dan Hagen, employee
benefits and executive compensation; and Warren Nachlis,
intellectual property.

Reynolds, the producer of Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes,
will pay a mixture of cash and stock valuing each Lorillard
share at $68.88, according to a statement. British American
Tobacco Plc (BATS) will fund $4.7 billion of the transaction, letting
it maintain a 42 percent stake in Reynolds. BAT’s U.K. rival
Imperial Tobacco Group Plc (IMT), meanwhile, will acquire brands such
as Kool and Blu e-cigarettes for $7.1 billion, potentially
assuaging antitrust concerns.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP represented BAT with a team led
by mergers and acquisitions partners Philip A. Gelston and Ting
S. Chen. The team also included partners Michael L. Schler, tax,
and Christine A. Varney, antitrust.

Allen & Overy LLP represents Imperial Tobacco. The team was
led by partners Jeremy Parr and Eric Shube and was supported by
partner Elaine Johnston.

Moves

Michael Weinsier, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP’s private-equity practice chairman for the past 10 years, joined Troutman
Sanders LLP in New York in its private-equity practice.

Also in New York, Samidh Guha moved to Jones Day in the
securities litigation and SEC enforcement practice from Akin
Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Snell & Wilmer added seven attorneys, including partners
Lucas Narducci and Mitchell Klein and a policy adviser to the
firm’s environmental and natural resources group in Phoenix. The
group joins the firm from Polsinelli LLP.

King & Spalding LLP recruited Samuel S. Choy in the tax and
employee benefits and executive compensation practices in
Atlanta from McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.

Latham & Watkins LLP said that Sami Al-Louzi joined the
firm as a partner in the corporate department in the Riyadh and
Dubai offices from Vinson & Elkins LLP. His practice focuses
primarily on equity capital markets in Saudi Arabia and other
Middle Eastern markets and on cross-border mergers and
acquisitions.

Litigation

General Motors Co. (GM)’s top lawyer said some of his staff
failed the company in handling an ignition-switch defect and
delayed the recalls that spurred U.S. government investigations.

Some lawyers made mistakes, Michael Millikin, GM’s general
counsel, said in written testimony to be delivered to a Senate
Commerce subcommittee. Advance copies of remarks of five
witnesses, including Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra, were
obtained by Bloomberg News.

“We had lawyers at GM who didn’t do their jobs; didn’t do
what was expected of them,” Millikin said in his statement.
“Those lawyers are no longer with the company.”

GM has recalled almost 26 million cars in the U.S. so far
this year, an all-time annual record that took shape in February
when the company announced an ignition-switch defect that
engineers had known about for years. This week’s hearing is GM’s
fourth since April 1 and will be more comprehensive, featuring
Kenneth Feinberg, who is administering a victim-compensation
program, and Anton Valukas, who led GM’s internal investigation.